Tim Grobaty: Spend Long Beach's money like it's your own

HOW WE RULE: Turns out that not only can a caveman run the 5th District in Long Beach, but apparently it doesn't take much to run the entire city.

We fixed the budget, for instance, on our lunch break. And we don't even take a lunch break.

While everyone is whining about impending slashes in service and the loss of the Good Life in Long Beach, we went through the budget in about 10 minutes and wound up with a surplus of $53.1 million. We're like some kind of Paul Krugman.

You, as the cybercouncil of Long Beach, get to decide how to throw your town's money around in seven categories of services, and you can (albeit at the whim of our city's fabulously parsimonious voters) raise or lower various taxes.

In our first pass, we kind of overdid it, taking a bunch of cops off the streets and trimming the fire department by a wee bit, and raised taxes to breathtaking heights.

But the $53.1 million rattling around in our man purse made us all rosy-cheeked with generosity, so we went through the challenge a second time, in which we generously added a few cops to the beat and a few firefighters because the department was looking perilously close to losing a couple of guys who are great at making giant batches of lasagna and trimming the roses around the firehouse.

We looked kindly upon Library Services, tossing the good folk $700,000, and we gave a mountain of your money - $2.4 million - to Parks, Recreation & Marine.

(Because transparency is all the rage these days among our political classes, we need to note here that our wife is a manager with Parks & Rec, but that didn't have much to do with our decision. We just like swing sets and jungle gyms and Rec Specs who let you check out carom cues and tetherballs.)

We didn't do much to the Public Works budget and we cut some of the city staff, but not our wife. That would be reckless. Last thing you want is a reckless City Council.

Bottom line: We increased total spending by $1.3 million. What would you do without us? We honestly don't know.

So, we're sitting here in the red, right? No problem. We're a liberal. We raise taxes. It's called you guys need to pitch in and pay for all these wonderful services that we've either improved or left alone.

We're bringing back the utility tax! Who's with us? Seriously, it's the end of all our problems. We raised it by $15.5million, and you won't even notice it. It's pennies a day. Cheaper than basic cable.

We also took the opportunity to increase sales tax by a mere quarter of a penny per dollar. Boom! $14 million. Parcel tax raise? That's an affirmative. Mo' money: $13.2 million.

Of course, as we mentioned, some of that is up for voter approval. We trust, now that you've seen the terror and squalor that resulted from carpetbagger Norm Ryan's Measure J utility tax cut, you will do the right thing at the polls this time.

If you think you can do better - and we can't imagine that you can, unless you hate parks and are loath to pitch in and do your share to make this city great and cop-heavy again - fire up your computer and take the challenge. We're terribly interested in your results.

THE END OF SUMMER!: One of our favorite local events is the Stroll & Savor in Belmont Shore, but it kind of bums us out when the last one of the season comes. We have to pack away our seersucker, and we are suckers for seersucker. Pretty soon we'll have to air out our anorak.

The instructions for Stroll & Savor are in the title: You walk (stroll, if you will) up and down Second Street, tasting (savoring is even better) the offerings of restaurants and chow shops.

Like the Smithsonian, if the Smithsonian was a restaurant, you can't eat it all in one day, which is why you should go both evenings - today and Thursday from 5:30-9 p.m.

More than 40 businesses will be participating, including Simmzy's, La Strada, Open Sesame, Venissimo Cheese, Roe Fish Market and Babette's Feast. That's just six, and we're already stuffed.

In addition to the food, you get serenaded by living musicians. Tonight, the band Assisted Living will be playing at Corona Avenue and the Long Beach Blues Army will be in front of Fromex at LaVerne Avenue. On Thursday, you get Sonic Recovery at LaVerne and Nuvolution in front of Rubio's at Roycroft Avenue.